Our new video interview with Igor Sydorenko, founder and frontman of STONED JESUS, is out now in early access for our Patreon members. Watch it on Patreon. Everyone else can watch it on our YouTube channel and read the full interview here on themetallist.com on Friday, October 2.
We sat down with Igor ahead of Songs to Moon, the second part of the Songs to… trilogy, due October 16 on Season of Mist. He calls it the band's gloomiest record and one of its most experimental: it opens with the heavy "Under the Skin" and closes with nothing but his voice and an acoustic guitar.
What we talk about
- "Syzygy", the first instrumental in STONED JESUS history
- the hidden melodies that stitch all three albums of the trilogy together
- how "Velvet" finally got its chorus
- why "good old stoner" reviews annoy him more than a bad one would
- the war, the "music is outside politics" messages, and the donation jar at every show
- how CELESTE got squeezed out of a French festival
- touring with CULT OF LUNA and the band's friendship with IGNEA
- the 15th anniversary of Seven Thunders Roar and IRON MAIDEN-style era tours
We've been following the Songs to Moon rollout all year, from the "Under the Skin" single to the "Velvet" video and the prog-opera "Jackal". This conversation fills in the story behind the record.
Why Patreon
The MetalList has been an independent Ukrainian metal webzine since 2003, with no corporate owner and no paywall on the site itself. Patreon is how we keep it that way. Patrons watch our interviews before anyone else, plus extras that don't make it onto the site, and every pledge goes straight into more interviews, reviews and live reports in English and Ukrainian.
If you'd like to watch the STONED JESUS interview today rather than Friday, pick the tier that suits you: see our membership tiers. Joining for free also gets you our public posts and updates.
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The interview premieres on our YouTube channel on Friday, alongside the rest of our conversations with Ukrainian and international metal bands. Subscribe to TheMetalList on YouTube so you don't miss it, and hit the bell to get notified when new interviews go up.
Pre-order "Songs to Moon": orcd.co/stonedjesussongstomoon